Got to talk to ATC when he was on the tarmac today. He said he said something earlier when he was in the tower that he never thought he say, “You’re #2 to land, 2 miles behind the Flying Fortress on final.”
For those who don’t get to see this before the website is updated:
September 16-18, 2016 Fairfield, NJ - Caldwell/Essex County Airport (CDW)
Field Location: Air Bound Aviation, Essex County Airport, 27 Wright Way, Fairfield, NJ 07004
Unfortunately, I only got the ground tour, though.
Pilot goes to ferry an older straight tail C-150 to it’s home base for a rebuild. It was kind of tired
C-150
Tired 100HP Continental Engine
Crazed windscreen.
No gyro’s installed.
VSI inop
Turn bank inop but the ball was there in the curved tube.
One VTH-2 Narco radio. No VOR indicator.
A VFR only plane.
Doors no longer fit well.
She needed a lot of TLC.
Pilot headed out for the 250 mile trip.
Cloud deck formed low and with higher elevation coming up, the pilot started climbing because the tops could seen at about 7-8 thousand.
Little bird was down to nibbling at a stall, engine wide open, mixture loved on to the best the engine could use, stuff under the manual flap handle holding it at about 8 degrees down flap which was working the best but at 5700 feet, little bird would.could not go higher. The clouds had no such problem. Clear air above the deck was so close and yet so far.
Time to turn around and go back to where he last had decent Wx behind him.
God had been giggling and little bird had not noticed. A U shaped wall of thunderstorms had formed behind them and the sides wings of weather were moving faster than little bird was. There was no ground to be seen.
Exactly where were they??? Over the high ground or not there yet?
Could raise no one on any of the few radio frequencys they had.
Poor pilot type, knees shaking was thinking as hard as possible trying to remember every thing learned or heard that might help.
Pilot was instrument capable but little bird sure was not.
Several hours later, pilot & little bird landed safely at the home base.
How did they live, not crash, not land anywhere in between and then get across the high ground and on to home base?
For what ever sequence of events that caused, you to be in that place, in that particular situation, and not able to climb anymore, magic or bad judgement, just really unlucky, the critical instruments were on board but they quit so were the same as not there, you ARE there. What to do to live?
How would you do it?
How do you think the pilot did it?
Do you think it is even possible to do it?
That’s one of those failures of “using superior judgment beats needing superior skill” situations. I *hate *it when that happens. 
Other than doing a deliberate spin down to VMC followed by scud-running to the destination not much comes to mind. Another approach would be to set up a deliberate steep spiral in VMC and do your best to hold constant G, airspeed, and centered ball as you drop into the clouds. G plus airspeed is a proxy for bank angle plus VVI. The tradeoff is subtle, which is why you want to set up steep, e.g. 60 degrees first, not down at, say, 30. The good news is that if you do f*** it up, it won’t hurt for long.
Although thankfully this isn’t my area of expertise.
I’m especially surprised to hear the pilot pressed to the destination versus aborting back to the departure point or some other conveniet field. The set-up sounded like he thought he was more likely short of the summit of the high terrain than past it when the situation got critical. Or perhaps I just assumed that.
Either way, once you’re down to VMC it’s time to sort out where you are. Fly down-slope until you find something you recognize, then proceed accordingly.
A C-150 will run for about 3:45 on full tanks with proper leaning if the engine is good. You’ll run out sooner if you spent an extra hour at WOT trying to cruise-climb too high as it sounds like this pilot did.
Other considerations are the availability of alternate routes. e.g. the pilot planned to fly straight line over the hills at 8000. But once he found his service ceiling was 5500 he had to take a much longer route through a mountain pass well off the straight-line route. Once he got out of the clouds and figured where in the heck he was. If there was no such low-altitude route then he doesn’t get to the destination today. Instead he lands someplace on the flats on this side of the hills.
All in all a fun problem to discuss. Not a fun problem to have. Luck was with little bird that day. Plus a large dollop of resourcefulness under fire and brass 'nads. Well done Gus; my hat’s off to you again.
I suppose one could drive back towards the thunderstorms then try thermalling in the inflow to gain enough altitude to cross the hills. This’d work best if the storms were traveling towards the high terrain. Double-good if they were high-based, as is common along the Front Range. Might even get enough orographic lift to make the difference as the storms, terrain, and you all try to occupy the same spot.
Tough luck if they close around you or you stumble into an outflow area.
I’d not be liking my odds when at least 3000 feet above my service ceiling depending on thermal/orographic lift to keep me above the rocks. Mountain downdrafts are as nasty as mountain updrafts are friendly.
are we talking 1930 or current time frame? If it’s current then I’d use the pilot ap on my phone for altitude, artificial horizon and airspeed and I’d use my ipad GPS with weather overlay to navigate safely to an airport.
If it’s 1930 then I’d tie a weight to a piece of string and use that as an artificial horizon in conjunction with the ball to ensure I’m in controlled turns.
In either case I wouldn’t let clouds get underneath me and would have landed rather than try to fly over mountains without multiple navigation backups.
If you believe that the weighted string would produce a useful vertical reference you’d simply graveyard spiral right in. The ball itself provides the same data the string-and-rock would about local “vertical” as felt by the vector sum of aircraft G in all axes plus Earth G.
My first cut is that the phone app would have the same problem, but I don’t know how sophisticated the accelerometers and API on the phone are. Which in turn limit how clever the pilot software can be. I’ve never played with any pilot gizmo software on my phone or tablets.
Do you have a recommendation for a free or low cost app I could put on my Android to play with?
try pocket pilot and see what you think. It’s free. I don’t have all the sensors needed for all the gauges on the ap but the the gauges I listed above work quite well. The trick is securing it upright to start with. You’d have to watch altitude to see if you have the horizon lined up.
The only “pocket pilot” on google play for phones was an ad-filled arcade game. Probably not what you meant. I found a couple of plausible gyro, etc., instrument packages at negligible prices though. Thanks for the pointer.
nm.
:smack: Well it would help greatly if I gave you the right name to look for. It was Pocket Cockpit.
Anyone know a good weight-and-balance ap, specific to a type (or with type options)?
I googled "excel, weight and balance and got this.
Haven’t had a chance to look at it but I know people have done this before. Should be fairly straight forward. You would need to know the key data points of your plane.
AOPA has a list of aps.
All good points and ideas guys.
I never thought about using up drafts to get higher. ( should have ) Little bird was way to tired to stay higher without constant help.
This was on 7-27-1971. Tyler TX to Tulsa, OK. I was 28 years old, had 771 hours total time to date, started my first for pay flinging on 3-29-1971 with 360 total hours on that date. A&P, Pvt, Commercial, instrument, multi-engine. ( Before night/tail wheel & other stuff was separated out. Plus no fancy electronics/radios at that time.) Full commercial ticket required an Inst. rating for all except AG flying back then.
There was more wrong with the aircraft but that was about comfort & noise but did not effect flight characteristics. (tires wore plum out, etc…)
Local mechanic wanted to red X it but I had a ferry permit and was also an A&P. Boss said I could take a bus back after delivering the replacement aircraft I was taking to Tyler.
I opted for a circling test flight over the airport with 7756E, she was sure tired but the WX was ok right then so I turned North for Tulsa.
Wx changed as I was struggling to get on top. OP has that part. I was sure I was still South of the main ( The Kiamichi Mountains are a mountain range in southeastern Oklahoma. A subrange within the larger Ouachita Mountains that extend from Oklahoma to western Arkansas )
I had never done more that a 1 turn spin in a 150 or anything much more that 1.5 turns in anything at that time. Also, I had no idea if it could do it for a long ways. I had no idea how low the base was or how much time or room I would have at ground level. I was also worried about getting too fast. I could slow fly and with a ground speed of 45 MPH or less, I might have a better chance. How to go straight and not make turns and be able to fight the vertigo I figured I would get? A friend had shown me a lot about the stand by compass that I did not know and I might could use that as an AH/DG combo device.
I turned to 240 degrees ( nice big mark on the compass ) to go towards lower/flatter ground and away from the mountains, less trees and as good a guess as I had for WX without heading stright into the Thunder Storm lines. Full 40 degrees of flap, ( I still think Cessna manual flaps are the best thing, saved my butt and allowed me to do many things but I digress. ) Slowed to some stupid indicated airspeed that had me nibbling at the stall where I just gently kept it doing that, Fixated on the compass so as to NAIL the heading with just rudder no matter what and had not pegged the gimbal card ring. I went into the soup about 4800 feet I think.
It was taking more rudder input than I expected to hold that heading but nibbling at the stall was going good but I was worrying about vertigo so I was really not looking away from that compass. “Don’t think , just concentrate” I keep telling myself. ( I never did get vertigo bad nuff to worry me, a little when I was holdin the rudder hard over to maintain heading at times. More brain fault than ear fault I think in retrospect. )
A few lifetimes later I broke out about 400 feet AGL ( was really getting worried by what I could catch of the altimeter ) it was medium rain which I had been in all the way down after the first 500 feet or so.
“I just sat there for a few minutes.”
Now what to do? I wanted to go home, ‘bad thinking but …’ low clouds in all direction and about a mile visibility in every direction, so with map in hand I turned back to about 40 degrees and went hunting.
I had had just enough pipeline patrol trainng that I was sort comfortable way down low and had some practice with sharply maneuvering a 150 quickly without the ground smiting me. Full on ground reference is quite a bit ( quite) different flying than is done at normal flight altitudes and you guys know. One finger on the old sectional and there I went.
Big electric transmission line comes up. Now I know right where I was. I knew that line as I had used it more than once and the visibility was getting better, light rain and a higher ceiling. I got on the East side and headed noth along it. Not 10 minutes later, a Money zipped South on the other side of the line doing just what I was doing going the other way.
Things got better & better and soon I was past McAlister, OK and in dry broken conditions with at least 1500 AGL bases. & 10 mile Vis.
I survived some bad judgement, learned some things about flying & myself that in later years would again save my ass in one way or the other. Stories for another time.
I quit flying for pay in 1998 with 10,300 hrs +/-. ( injury & other stuff that made getting a medical out of my reach )
58 different airplanes with 54 different type certificates.
Old, not bold. Good nuff for me. I am truly thankful for the old/bold and average pilots that taught me so much through all those years, many are gone now and their knowledge is being lost.
Sadly, most younger pilots do not care about learning some of that stuff & I get more & more unforgiving with the repeat offenders who are killed and who kill those with them, when the answer was within reach all the way up to seconds from hitting the ground HARD. They had no plan in their pocket & did not want to learn IMO.
I am lucky that I made it through with all the wrong things I did … But I was constantly learning and experimenting and always had a plan, never tried to fly above my ability. Looked scary to many but good sense, knowledge, training & experience make a tremendous difference.
Thanks to:
Wayne
Roul
Hurley
Terry
Dad
Mom
Older sister with more ratings than I had
Jerry B ( taught me how to fly pipe ) ( PLP pilots climb to clear fences. )
Lefty, who had 50,000+ hours of pipeline time = all the other flying he had done ( 7000+ when I died of old age.)
Earnest Gann ‘author’
Bob Johnson ‘author’
And many more.
And from people on the SDMB I continue to learn new-to-me things and get my blood pumping with the bad information or no clue about actually flying a work airplane that is not perfect. ( While I was flying bank checks at night, for extra money, I could keep my job if the only excuse to not go was Moderate ice reported by arriving airliners or a tornado actually on the field. Other than those two, we went. It was scary to figure weight, you just had to know what you could make that particular aircraft do. Some could make them do more than others so routes, pilots & $$ were moved around to compensate. Maybe some of those stories later )
that’s quite a story. Mine are much tamer and were made so by planning ahead. I agree that pilots are not getting the training in decision making. I was taught by my friends and they’ve given me good advise over the years that helped me make good decisions. I was taught to think ahead of the plane and to recognize a bad situation before I flew into it.
Oh, I got into a lot of my situations due to bad judgement. Kind goes with flying as a way to make a living, such as AG flying where you are too close to the ground or danger. Add Pipeline patrol, power line patrol, EMS chopper work, any chopper sling loading operation, firefighting, any military flying, any IFR flying, no reason really good nuff to do that but even the airlines will fly into IFR with known icing conditions and it is possible every once in a while for even an airliner not to be able to keep it all off EVERY time and EVERY condition.
And on and on.
Your comments are absolutely correct and it (flying) should always be approached in that manner but the way you made it sound, IMO, was that because of that attitude about flying, you are the ‘right stuff’ because you make better decisions. The insinuation is insulting and totally unfounded. You seem to be saying that I obviously do not think ahead of the plane and just was lacking as a pilot.
Your sly implication that all my excitement was/is due to bad decision making and/or not being informed on all aspects of every flight.
I am sure you did not mean that in a bad way but to non-aviation people, it sure might seem like it.
So, an medical emergency flight should be refused because there is some level of need to push a bit and a good pilot would never take any flight with any avoidable risk involved. Not his donated plane. Not paying for the fuel, not charging for doing the flying, the weather was far from perfect, all things provided by 3 different people. All went great but… What if I bent the airplane, the one I had never seen before that night, did not fuel myself ( did check and sump it etc, ) used borrowed IFR charts, had already done 6 hours of aerial mapping, yes, that would have been my fault even though the only problem was a flat tire say. That did not happen, the whole trip up and then back was just fine.
But, the traveling nurse,another person myself were all in unnecessary danger, ( except the patient,she had to get there )then ) and a smart well trained pilot would have refused the flight.
Oklahoma to Erie Pennsylvania. Me, I’d do it again, even in worse conditions. Society has changed in what it considers important since those days. Me, not so much.
Kind of like driving a car or truck for a living. No one HAS to do that but the world would be vastly different if no one did the dangerous stuff. Absolutely no need for firemen. Those that do it are foolish and get killed because they decided to go someplace risky.
Have you flown for hire, gotten paid for flying, made a living for more than a month as a pilot? What is your total time and ratings? What kind of airplanes?
I know a lot of my stories come from my bad judgement but a not insignificant portion came from ATC, Weather forecaster types, low time pilots doing stupid things, pilots who refuse ( even legally ) to get out of or go into a place that causes another flight increased danger. I have some stories about those folks too.
Being the pilot means everything is on you. Bad maintenance, unexpected Wx, being hit from behind by another plane, it is the pilots fault and it should be. I like having no one else to blame, makes me try harder. Solo sailing, stupid & dangerous, rock climbing, soccer referee, all those things that are ‘right now,’ ‘no do overs,’ I really like being there. Are/were there any bad repercussions caused by your refusal to take a flight? Missed an house payment, can’t get braces for your daughter?
Now, I was reminded that the airline pilots don’t have it near as bad as the old days or Part 135 flying that is what the little guys are doing but still, do you ever wonder how long you would have a job if you regularly refused a flight at the last minute because you did not like something that might possibly happen? Think any of the major airlines would put up with that pilot for long?
I bet that attitude would be totally OK with an overnight outfit where you are flying a single engine Cessna Caravan to itty bitty airports in all kinds of weather nightly.
All my flying was mostly pre 2011 and post 1960 and IMO was the best time to be a pilot I could have lived in IMO, for what I liked to do.
I was an flight instructor for a while but stopped when I realized I was not cut out for that. I did not have enough tolerance for people who willfully refused to do what I told them to do. Last flight as an instructor was when I crossed my arms and let him crash. Bawahahaha His airplane and all the other local instructors had washed their hands of him. Instruction was not for me. That was a funny story also.
One of my sisters, ( the older than me one ) had a big old country boy try to commit suicide with her one day in a C-150. Neat but scary story that was. Never would have happened if she never became an instructor. Smart pilots won’t be instructors. An unnecessary risk. Let the people with bad judgement take those jobs & risks, right?
There’s a lot of value to people operating within their comfort zone. The weekend pilots aren’t lesser people. But they are better served by being more conservative than the folks who do it all day every day. There’re always unknown unknowns in this business but there are more of them for the folks who don’t do this every day.
Having said that I know several guys who killed themselves in airplanes. In some cases killing others for their own sins. In most cases they were guys doing it for a living. Who forgot that taking chances unwittingly every day will eventually bite you. They developed the habit of rolling the dice blindfolded. What me worry? It worked yesterday.
That’s a very different thing from doing inherently risky stuff with eyes wide open, reducible risks reduced, mind attuned to the irreducible risks, and all senses on overdrive. Lots of folks don’t have the aptitude or discipline or stamina for that. They *think *that’s what they’re doing but they’re actually doing the previous paragraph: rolling the dice blindfolded.
My beef with the Part 135 world in the few short months I worked there is that it’s simply impossible for any business to stay in business while keeping the aircraft fully airworthy and complying with all the FAA regs. So the businesses are forced to cheat. And the pilots pay for this with violations, shitstained undershorts, and occasionally, death.
It isn’t right. But it is so, at least in my limited experience in that part of the pool.
Perzactly !!!
And that is how you make a fortune disappear, try to do it all correctly in Part 135… Bawahahahaha 
For various and sundry reasons, I have been able to leave the ground on the ground in all my flying ( has not totally stopped my ability do be stupid ) but with the way my life has gone I have been in the sort of places a lot where even a few seconds of inattention or stupid would be lethal.
Another interest thing I just was remembering, Right after the McMurry Federal Building disaster, I flew a mapping camera right down between the buildings and made several passes with different methods looking for different results.
No one was smiling that day. They did not make me answer any questions or search the aircraft. Not even any helicopters of the police or anyone else was anywhere near where we were sent.
Strange day and glad we were not out on a job when they called us.
Lordy you read an awful lot into something I didn’t say. I only typed a handful of sentences and they were in agreement with what you said. Where you came up with that manifesto I can’t imagine. Nothing I said inferred anything about you. thinking ahead of the plane is just another way of describing critical thinking.
Magiver, it reads to me as if you are saying mine happened the way they did because I did not plan ahead with enough/any critical thinking.
You said,
" Mine are much tamer and were made so by planning ahead."
No big deal, just was how I read it within the flow of the thread. Have a good day… 
rereading I have to agree. It was not my intent. My apologies.